Round offs and Back Handsprings

[akozy89]

I'm looking for drills for round offs and back handsprings for our level 3s and 4s. They're having a really difficult time getting their chests ups and not sticking their butts out. We've worked snap downs off of mats and most of them can do them successfully, but when it comes to doing the actual skill they can't translate what they did in the drill. I'm having a hard time getting the girls to stretch out their back handsprings. When I taught back handsprings to older girls in a tumbling/cheer class I often talked about angles to them, but a seven year old won't understand that. What else could I tell them?

I'm also looking for opinions on hand placement in a round off. As a gymnast I was taught to place one hand turned all the way around and the other pointing at that hand:

^ < (assuming that the round off started facing away from the above words.)

I just started working at this gym a few months ago, but I've noticed that they haven't place much emphasis on the hand placement. Could this also be a part of the problem with them getting their chests up fast enough? I feel like they are keeping their hands the same way the would in a cartwheel, so they aren't turned around enough to do a snap down like they do in the drill.

 

[Coach.Simon]

When athletes are having trouble getting their chest/shoulders up at the end of a round off, it's due to them not having a block through the shoulders.

I suggest ALOT of handstand pops, I'm not sure if that's what they're called at other gyms, but I put an incredibly heavy emphasis on them, as a ro-bhs has not one, but two blocks in it - both of them effecting the entry into the next skill.

.....Wow. I guess they're not called handstand pops, as I just looked for a youtube video with a good guide and found nothing.

I suggest having your kids go on a panel mat, depending on their height have them lunge entirely on it, or with their back foot off.

have them attempt a round off, placing their hands at the far end of the mat and landing off of the mat on the floor. This helps because the extra height before impacting the floor allows more time for them to get their shoulders up - allowing them to feel the correct landing position.

As they get more proficient and start landing it well, unfold the panel mat so its one panel shorter, continue doing this.

I have some girls who have no blocking action through their shoulders (or at least cannot do a handstand pop, which is basically where they lunge, go into a handstand and before their hands hit do a block through their shoulders, which causes them to rebound/pop off the ground) who somehow manage to do satisfactory round off backhandsprings - however it took them significantly longer.

YouTube - ‪Drills for Better Roundoffs - Tammy Biggs‬&rlm; <- the first drill here is a great one, however if the kids are struggling have them start entirely on, or line up two mats. When their back foot is off of the mat, they require a stronger heeldrive - therefore making it undesireable for a student who is already struggling with another aspect of the round off.

The block is all timing - and there are many drills for it. I dont want to make this post too much of a block of text though, so I wont bother stating too many of the drills.

The most basic one is to have the kid stand in front of a cheese wedge about a foot away from it, with his/her arms outstretched straight towards the wall, with their palms facing it. Have them fall forward, and right before hitting the wedge, have them shrug their shoulders forward into the mat. If done correctly, they should "bounce" off, if done poorly it'll look ridiculous.

Think of it as the difference between the kids who can do a roundoff and rebound out of it, and the kids who round off then do a stretch jump after and try to tell you that they "totally did a rebound"

I'm sorry. I'm running on 2 hours of sleep and this post probably doesn't make much sense.

 

[akozy89]

That's actually really helpful. I always did the blocking drill off of the mat for handsprings on vault, but I never thought of using it for round offs. And you're not crazy, I've always called the handstands with a block handstand pops as well.

 

[Coach.Simon]

Good luck! And also, in regards to the hand positioning - a speaker at the last national congress I attended addressed this....

The verdict was as long as the arms aren't so far apart that it interferes with how evenly they come up out of the round off, the hand positioning was.....(brace yourself.....) inconsequential.

In fact, I had learned to teach it that way too, with one hand > and the other ^, however the speaker said that out of all the options, that was the WORST way, and that hand pointing > should be at a fourty five degrees, not >^...something about their elbow breaking down when the hand was at that angle.

Sorry I can't be more specific. I know someone at our gym recorded that lecture, if you want I can try to hunt it down.

 

[akozy89]

If you can find it that'd be great, but if not it's no big deal. Thanks for all the help!

 

[CoachTodd]

Quite a few of the kids I've coached that can do the snap downs but not the round offs actually have poor lunges and/or hurdles going into the skills. They haven't figured out how to generate power using their legs. You could use the round off from a kneeling position drills. I also set up panel mats for fall / step / round off. I like to make sure they are set up where they have taking as big of a step into the lunge as they can as well as reaching as far as they can into the round off. Many of the times when they are having trouble blocking isn't due to the ability to block but to the angle they are coming into the skill.
Round offs over barrels are fun as well.